I recently saw a feature on the program, "how it's made" on electrostatic speakers and it piqued my interest in them. I was wondering the pros and cons of them, their placement, space needs, sound, etc. Any advice would be appreciated.

Being an owner of ESL speakers for several years, and having used and reviewed others and these in many systems, I disagree with several of the generalities associated with ESL speakers. I do not find ESL inherently superior in terms of cleanness, clarity, definition, etc. In fact, in some respects they are poorer than the finer dynamic or hybrid dynamic speakers.

ESL speakers can reveal a wonderful amount of information, however they do not reveal more information than other types of speakers. It is more so the type of information they reveal which is construed as "more". Dipole and line source speakers produce unique wave forms, and I believe that is mistakenly taken as more information.

While the scale of ESL is typically superior to most dynamic speakers, the resolution and fine detail of the center/phantom image is not superior. It is splayed, and that is unavoidable due to the nature of the drivers.

Bass is typically a weakness with large panels. Some manufacturers do better than others in that regard. Declarations of one brand as inherently superior to others are highly subjective, and in my case not supported by actual use.

I do not agree that they are superior in midrange transparency. I can get equally fine midrange from all sorts of speakers, line source, dynamic, hybrid dynamic. The character of the midrange, as with all frequencies is different with ESL. I am unwilling to give up LF in using an ESL speaker, and then try to compensate by saying the midrange is so great. That is simply not true in my experience. No one should buy an ESL because they think the midrange will be vastly superior.

I do not agree that they are insensitive to side wall placement; placing material to their side along the wall has an audible impact on the sound, and I recommend people experiment with that.

ESL can be a fantastic listening experience - or else I wouldn't own one. But, it has inherent weaknesses, and is not wholesale superior to other genres of speakers. Anyone who tells you so is speaking from emotion, not fact.

@audiokinesis: I think the technical aspect of the ESL is quite important.

The Beveridge lens revolutionized how ESL's sound, especially as it applies to sound dispersement and I'm not sure anyone realizes this but per Roger Modjeski who worked for Beveridge, Harold Beveridge designed these speakers to be placed on the side walls (Duke - recall that RMAF show where the room I was working had the speakers on the side walls - that guy whose name now escapes me worked for Beveridge too and copied the concept using dynamic drivers). The early Janzsen ESLs were also quite unique and the Soundlabs speak for themselves.

Having learned a thing or two from Bev, Roger Modjeski designed his ESLs to have uniform sound dispersement, without curving the panels. In addition, he realized the inherent weakness was in the bass and designed his speakers to be bi-amped with dynamic woofers which he selected to work best at 100 Hz and below. We modified a set of my Acoustat Model 2's using one of his panels (actually a half size version) to go along with the stock panel. I use a 4 box woofer array along with the Beveridge RM-3 crossover to filter the highs and lows at 100 Hz (4th Linkwitz-Riley 24 dB slope with a unique passive EQ added by Roger on the low pass board).

The other major tech improvement we made to the Acoustat's was removing the interfaces. Inherently, Roger felt the step up transformer is the real issue with ESLs. Anyone who hasn't heard an ESL with direct drive amps hasn't really heard what they are capable of. I'm working on taking my ESL 57s in that direction as well. As an aside, and from my perspective I do think the ESL 57 is still the standard by which any ESL is judged (it's what Roger Modjeski used as the model for his ESL), especially when it comes to the mid-range, but I also think people underestimate the bass in that speaker.

@inna- uhm, money? at the time I bought the Duo I can’t remember what the Trio sold for, but remember that it needed more woofs to make it right. I do think the Trio would probably benefit from a decent sized room, especially with those bass horns. I suspect a used pair might be a good deal. PS: BTW, the room shown in that link is not my main system room, but the front "parlor," a sort of small living room area on the main floor of an old Victorian house. The horns are up in a loft space on the second floor.

@clio09, were the speakers on the side wall ESP’s, and the designer’s name Sean McCaughan? I saw and heard them in the 1990’s at Acoustic Image in Studio City, CA, a great high end shop in SoCal. Never got to hear the Beveridge, though I heard the Dayton Wright’s in 1972 or 3 when David Fletcher (designer of the SOTA table and Sumiko MDC 800 "The Arm") had a little retail shop in Berkeley.

Anyone who has heard the original Quad and doesn’t think it is extremely good at reproducing vocals and other acoustic instruments, well, I don’t know what to say. Uncolored, see-through liquid transparency (low energy storage in the near-massless Mylar, which starts and stops on a dime), natural timbres and textures, the ability to make every thread in a densely-woven tapestry or fabric (every voice in a choir, for instance) clearly audible as a separate entity. Other ESL’s, too. All speaker designs have their own strengths and weaknesses; you have to find one that excels at those characteristics in reproduced music you value most, your priorities.